OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
J.K. Rowling is facing a potential criminal investigation under Scotland’s new hate crime law for comments she has made about transgender issues.
Rowling has publicly challenged aspects of gender identity ideology and refused to stop referring to trans women as men.
“People who experience this turmoil cannot correlate to their gender expression when identifying themselves within the traditional, rigid societal binary male or female roles, which may cause cultural stigmatization,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders stated.
A Scottish minister indicated Rowling’s past tweets misgendering trans women could be investigated as hate speech.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” Rowling wrote.
“Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function,” she wrote.
“It could be reported, and it could be investigated. Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that,” she said.
Rowling criticized the law for pressuring women to deny biological facts and erasing women, and said describing biological sex could become a criminal offense.
She welcomed potential arrest if her comments qualify, setting up a potential free speech court battle that could impact hate speech laws worldwide regarding gender debates.
“For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of ‘woman’ to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors,” Rowling wrote.
“It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,” she added.
“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offense under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Rowling added.
